Post Content

Slylock Fox, 11/6/17

I’m pretty sure this is the first ever case of Slylock adjudicating a human-on-human crime? Admittedly, he’s mostly intervening to stop a fellow canid from being falsely accused, because otherwise he’d probably be happy to let the hairless two-legs finish each other off in whatever walled ghettos the remnants our once-proud species have been forced to live in. Also, if you’re like me your first though on reading the solution was “Wait a minute, can foxes see red?” According to this website with some extremely 1999-era web design, they can’t, which totally makes sense in context here. “Wait, red jellybeans? I don’t even know what that means. Smitty, you’re under arrest.”

Marvin, 11/6/17

If you’re going to do a strip where sapient dogs and cats exist in a world pretty much like our own, you’re going to have to grapple with some narrative difficulties. For instance, the fact that cats have natural instincts to bury their waste that dogs don’t share has to be recast as cats being “allowed” to potty indoors in a way that dogs are not, despite the fact that they want to. After all, a dog that can think in complete sentences could figure out how to use a litter box, ha ha! Anyway, there are some ways around this difficulty, such as, just for example, not doing so many jokes that revolve around pissing and shitting, for the love of Christ, though I recognize that sadly that technique is unavailable to the Marvin creative team, who have to write poo poo and pee pee jokes constantly, possibly because they lost a bet or are under a curse.

Post Content

Blondie, 11/5/17

Wow, generally I think of Dagwood as being pretty cheery and not at all prone to self-reflection, so it’s kind of amazing amazing to see him waking up in the dark and staring out at the reader saying “Time for another day” in genuine despair. The only thing Dagwood really consistently dislikes is work, and this strip is canonically happening on a Sunday! Today is a harrowing look at the yawning emptiness at Dagwood’s core, the one he can never fill no matter how many sandwiches he stuffs down his gullet. In the final panel, he learns about the Daylight Savings Time mixup and realizes that at least it’s socially acceptable to escape into the blankness of sleep for another hour.

Mark Trail, 11/5/17

Ha ha, that got grim, didn’t it? Uh, well, let’s cheer up with Mark letting us know that sometimes animals do weird stuff, and it “goes viral” online! Can anyone explain why it happens? Mostly not! Mark, innocent lamb that he is, believes the scientists who tell him this bird’s mothering instincts were triggered by the fish’s mouth-hole. Here’s the truth, Mark: they’re kissing. That’s what kissing looks like. I know you think you need to work your way up to that with a rousing game of “got your nose”, but you’ve got to understand, these are animals.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/5/17

Our hero Buck has come a long way since he became dangerously dehydrated from walking around a comic-book convention. But today he’s facing a foe that will challenge all the physical conditioning he’s been doing since then: stairs.

Spider-Man, 11/5/17

AHAHAHAHA

SPIDER-MAN GOT DISTRACTED BY TALKING INTO HIS CELL PHONE AND WEB-SLUNG FACE-FIRST INTO A BUILDING

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 11/4/17

This entire “Uncle Gary schemes to get Rick to sing the national anthem” storyline is like the old philosophical irresistible force/immovable object problem, only with half-baked Gil Thorp plot points. Here, the conflict is between Gary’s monomanical attempts to get his nephew behind the mic for the homecoming game, which effort is all for naught because it can’t possibly lead to superstardom like he seems to expect, and Gil’s stubborn refusal to entertain the idea, which is entirely pointless and which he hasn’t even bothered articulating a reason for. Today’s strip is mostly entertaining to me because of the final panel, in which Dr. Pearl attempts to use her Ed.D. Mind Tricks to get Gil to lighten up already.

Spider-Man, 11/4/17

Speaking as a freelancer, I have to say that Peter Parker seems to have an extremely flawed view of the power dynamics between a stringer photographer and that stringer photographer’s only client. Still, I find today’s strip extremely relatable, as I too often soothe myself by imagining J. Jonah Jameson in a state of apoplexy.

Shoe, 11/4/17

Roz is right to sport the Patented Shoe Goggle Eyes Of Horror. In the Shoe world of sapient avians, a common form of suicide is to purchase multiple cats, then lay back and allow them to feed on the bird-flesh they crave.